Wednesday, February 18, 2009

We Were NEVER Mnml, February 2009

I lost my mp3 player and Sennheiser HD25 headphones in the Marysville fire, (here's a full account written by my ladyfriend) and in order to deal with that, I’ve spent the week procrastinating doing the work I can’t concentrate on, scouring websites for information on players and ’phones, wondering if I could turn my loss into an opportunity to fetishise electronic products and find myself a better listening combination.

In doing this, I discovered two things I already knew (a typical google experience). First of all, I discovered that mp3 players have totally and completely transformed the way we listen (duh, but it’s true)… Most of what appears to be the big sellers at hi-fi shops, even snobby in audiophile joints, is either for iPods or has been forced to take the iPod into account.

The second thing is that ‘DJ headphones’ remains a late 90s category. Most, if not all the phones available are so tacky, tastless and ‘modern’ looking (in that aluminium look plastic kinda way) that you would have to be the kinda person who (still) wears triangle bags, Fudge 'hair product', Royal Elastics (or Acupunctures), and Alphanumeric (or Syke) to think they’re cool. Or you could get a pair of HD25s…

Then there were other new things. I noticed, for example, how canalphones like Shure and Etymotic have blown up in popularity, and that there is a market within this market that doesn’t balk at paying 600+ dollars for the top models, which tells me that a lot of people with a lot of money (even snob audiophiles) are doing almost all of their listening using a portable player. And that people have a very strong urge to totally blot out the world, the tram, and their office. The way things are going at the moment, who can blame them?

What else? All iPods, except the 4th and 5th generation models, sound like rubbish (if you believe what the geeks reckon, at least), either because of the signal routing or because of the cheap DAC. NB, the older ones were much better than the new ones. For Pod haters or jaded ex lovers, Samsung and Cowon are much better (and cheaper), but fie on you if you use OS X and want to ‘freely choose’ something un-Apple. You will be cursed with compatibility issues and zero iTunes compatibility for years and years and years. Ubuntu, here I come. But if you do have a 4th or 5th gen iPod, you can get ‘em modded to make them sound shit hot (google ALO audio). And if you have a broken one (which so many of us do) and you live in Melbourne (which some of us do) you can get ‘em repaired, cheaply, on Elizabeth St (google Happy Mobile). Don’t let anyone in an Apple shop tell you otherwise. Apple gets more like Scientology every day.

You need an mp3 player in 2009: it’s the new way to go digging. The simple reason for this is the explosion in podcasts – and not just quantity, but quality. It is now entirely possible to have an endless stream of top notch mixes delivered 100% free to your player, and mostly they’re supported by websites with exhaustive tracklists and discussion forums. Coupled with discogs, this can catapult you to the Kingdom of Geekdom in a manner of months. And no matter what style you’re into, there’s a podcast for you. Why bother nicking mix comps off BitTorrent? And why, for that matter, would you ever pay money for a mix CD? Or go to a club, unless you’re single, young, and full of the devil?

In 2009, the onus is on two groups of people. First, it’s on anyone in the business of publishing mix comps, who need to explain to their listeners why they should fork over thirty-plus dollars for something they can get better (longer sets, more community/discussion, often more up-to-date and better tracklists ‘cos of less licensing issues) for free. Second, it’s on anyone in clubland who thinks they can still take the piss with poorly organised parties (has-been DJs, shitty venues, inferior systems, overpriced drinks, thug bouncers) once their punters spend a few years getting educated. We live in interesting times.

What follows is a list of some of the better podcast series (to add to the ones we’re all familiar with [RA, BeatsinSpace, LWE, Infinitestatemachine, Modyfier}), all available for free.

Bleep43 (Impeccable selection, unobtrusive back announcing, great live sets)

33 comments:

another podcast series i really like is the one on littlewhiteearbuds.com - accompanied by interviews with djs/producers/label heads. great stuff & the writing is top notch too :)

the new(ish) filthy friction podcast started out with a really tight set by thomas schumacher, that's one of my favorites recently! http://www.filthyfriction.com/?q=node/47

and i like your analogy with digging - i've definitely been expanding my mental map of electronic music production across tangled international communities through these mixes+tracklists+databases :]

with the vinyl spoils of that growing map i also produce this podcast biweekly: http://singsweetsoftware.com/, with goofy accompanying texts, and art by friends. in this case the multimedia accompaniment is meant to be a way of positioning the mixes without coming out too definitively or authoritatively; more by context&suggestion&poetry.

Hey, hmmm well I have only just started dowloading MP3 podcast / DJ sets and have found some stellar sets - mainly on the sites you comment on, and as Jake does, Little White Earbuds.

I have many great downloads but I reckon Akufen's on http://www.beyondbooking.com/podcast.asp is pretty close to the top of the heap as are the three Donato Dozzy / Labrynth downloads from this gorgeous site. Big ups to you BTW - I LURVE your MNML site.

Also excellent are the Rene Breitbarth from Resident Advisor. Gorgeous. Deep. Highly recommend this one.

Another site worth checking is http://no-rockstars.blogspot.com/search/label/Techno%20sets.

Now, as to MP3's - hmmm I have only got in to these with the advent of finding podcasts as above over the last 6 months. I have an excellent system at home and quite often, usually even, the lesser quality of MP3's is apparent.

However MP3's is still putting me across great new music and in fact I will go so far to say the mixes are better than mix-CD's (which I still buy better ones of). I think the reason being due to non commercial considerations (and licensing), the tracks are fresher and generally more underground / less commercial. Quite often I will then track down the artist of a track I really like, and start buying his / her releases. For me it's a collection. I don;t see it as a series of files as younger people do these days. (I'm 47 but not your typical 47 y/o lol ! )

I won't have an MP3 player (well, other than a Shuffle so I don't have to listen to the shite at the gym). I prefer good sound, at home, and don't like walking with earbuds / phones. Hell, in inner Sydney ya have to be streetwise ! On earbuds, I did buy the Sony's below and for $100 set of earbuds (you can actually get them for about $70 elsewhere), they have a surprisingly great sound & good clean bass.

@ Pantycontrol: with all due respect - and I'm certainly not imputing any lack of quality to 0-1 - you have provided a link to a mix series of which you are a contributor. This could be interpreted as self-promo, and I'd rather open this thread to discussion. So maybe as a way of doing that, pantycontrol, could you please tell us a little about your philosophy or ethos of 'casting?

personally i've found it hard to go past the resident advisor casts. as i type this, josh wink is on the download...fantastic.

i've recently subscribed to the m_nus podcast, but that's gotten off to a shocking start with marc houle. i should have expected it i guess...m_nus is pretty irrelevant these days.

i would recommend the beatfreax podcast (http://feeds.feedburner.com/beatcast), which has a pretty varied selection and rarely fails to produce.

finally, i would like to see artists take more "risks" with their programming of podcasts. joris voorn did it on his ra cast, and that for me remains the benchmark. i've been looking into doing my own for a little while, as it gives me the opportunity to play tracks i would never dream of playing out in a club or bar. it's nice to dream...

I feel like RA has made a real effort to diversify their casts - disclaimer, although I write for them, I have no influence over this process beyond being asked once or twice for people I thought might be good - and we've seen some great ones over the past while. Voorn's is a memorable example, I think.

@m_nus: that label is all about developing its brand identity. R Hawtin is the Steve Jobs of techno, and he *really* believes in technology and in bringing it to the people with a blend of silicon valley and THX 1138... I just interviewed him, and that was my strong impression.

Just wanted to chime in to second the Bleep43 choice... most always outstanding.

For streaming stuff, I like to listen to Dave Mothersole's show (was on MinistryofSound, but moving to Proton... maybe??) and, well, outside this blogs mandate perhaps, but Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio" is absolutely killer.

Hey dude, sorry to hear about the fire, check the link for some cool replacement 'phones...

http://www.phonicarecords.co.uk/SearchResult.aspx?simple=HEADPHONES

I think talking on podcasts is quite refreshing if done right... with reams and reams of downloaded sets and 'casts i look forward to the shuffle bringing up a To The Bone radio show... but please, to all spanish and italian radio shows: STOP CHATTING OVER THE MUSIC... see any of the Goa Madrid sets:

well shame on you pantycontrol! I do not wish to insult you pantycontrol, but that really is a god awful moniker, really. yeah i said it!

anyway - back to the point of this forum - I think you have made some interesting points, as the explosion of the podcast really has taken off, and it is an aspect of dance music that i love - that it moves at break neck speeds due to technology. BUT I hit a hook when i read the line "And why, for that matter, ...Or go to a club, unless you’re single, young, and full of the devil?"

ehhh are you mad?

For me the club is where it all started. Listening to all of these great free podcasts they become exciters or teasers for the experience at a club. Now I no longer go out every weekend - I am 34 and my wife and I allow ourselves to have fun once a month only as we also have 2 children. Without going to a club to dance I doubt I would listen to so many electronic dance podcasts, I am sure my musical tastes would dirft elsewhere - I also DJ approx twice a month in Berlin and other European cities - but as I cannot "go clubbing" as much all the podcasts serve as a replay if you like of what others are playing and offer inspiration to my own musical directions.

I do not ever think the podcast could become a replacement for a club, but they will certainly raise the bar of the average 'dancers' expectations. I am also a bit like Srdic, in that I collect these files as reference points (but only those i really like from start to end make that jump to the 'kept files' file)

I also wonder what the point is in spending so much money of high end reference head phones or inear plugs for mp3 players? surely these headphones just make the imperfection or compression of an mp3 file more obvious - unless one is listening to WAVs or AIFFs I see little point in spending over 50 euros - and most mp3 podcasts are at 192kb, which is good - but not perfect enough to warrant spending over 100 euros on! I feel comfort is more important! at least for my computer whilst working it is.

podcast series aren't a mass-scale benchmark for ubiquitous music curation. it's a niche thing, and in my opinion, it will always be that way.

people have long recorded radio shows for walkmen playback. there are people who take the time to do so, fanatically at that, and there are people who nonchalantly switch on/off the radio in their car or itunes radio. there isn't going to be any podcast revolution with regard to punters/the general public becoming more attuned to taste, music history, etc. the same measures taken or not taken by a given listener apply to the ritual of downloading podcasts just as it did with radio broadcasts. ie, the resources have existed before mp3s.

for what reasons are podcasts produced in the first place? on one hand we have recordings of radio shows, produced on a consistent cycle (daily, weekly) for both broadcast and now digitally-archives for downloading/ portable and convenient playback. in this realm, podcasts are just another means of distribution of this pre-produced content. it's a much cheaper alternative to licensing additional radio frequencies. radio shows aren't reformatting their content for portable convenience offered by an ipod. these podcasts come in mp3 format for bandwidth reasons. no radio station can digitally archive and disseminate their 24/7 content on media of higher quality; it's not financially justified. i don't see what tweaking an ipod or investing in great headphones would do to enhance this type of experience since the medium is already compressed as a radio signal or as mp3.

college radio used to serve the function of exposing people to new music. easily accessible downloads and music journalism (resident advisor) chipped away at college radio's relevance, which only happened in the last 10 years or so. i have a feeling it's those same people, or people with a similar mentality when it comes to collecting/curating underground music who are now running their blogs and posting "mixtape" podcasts (infintestatemachine, mnml ssgs, etc.).

rinse fm and beatsinspace are at a crossroads of these two podcast types. tim sweeney recently redesigned/enhanced his beatsinspace website. here's a guy whose show exists because of wnyu 89.1 fm new york's platform, but if you compare wnyu's digitally-archived content and tim's site, both of which offer podcasts of show, you'll see how tim has taken the ball and ran off with it. it's a total snowball effect. he takes the relevance of radio format and capitalizes on it. it's a pretty fascinating case study.

On the clubs thing: well, most night clubs in Melbourne suck. You have to pick your nights carefully. This is not Tokyo or Berlin. Would that it was (on Saturday night). On every other night, I'm fine that Melb is Melb. But there is no panoramabar here.

On the phones thing: You make the connection between 'casts and 'phones. But, of course, I don't just use one for the other. I also DJ. I also listen to vinyl and CD. And almost all my files these days are at least 320kbps.

In my view the 'deficiencies' of compressed files have been massively overstated, especially if they're not amplified that much.

This has a lot to do with a very long discourse of hi-fi snobbery among self-professing 'audiophiles' as well as the (more important) debate about playing mp3s in clubs, which also links into discussions of vinyl, which ususally involves passionate defences of said medium by people who have already bought into the format hook, line and sinker.

I have plenty of 320 mp3s where I defy you to tell the difference between 'em and a WAV played through a conventional home hi-fi amp at the kind of volumes that don't make bad neighbours.

Much greater differences in quality exist between recordings than between compressed versions of those recordings.

@ to the bone:

http://www.tothebone.co.uk/

(you coulda googled it... )

@ araki: I take your point on radio, however there are key differences. The first is distribution. How would I, an Australian in Melbourne, listened to any of the podcasts I mentioned if they were pirate radio? So the penetration: that is new, absolutely.

The second is a matter of storage and portability: let's just say I was a freak for a certain radio show and I taped it, just like I used to when I was a kid, to be played back on my Walkman. How on earth would I tape the dozen hours a week's worth of material that came through? How would I store and file it? How would I carry it?

'College radio' such as it is is always a term I've associated with the States. There isn't really any such thing here. In Melbourne we have RRR and PBS, both of whom play an eclectic mix of stuff, and there are some excellent shows there which could expose you to all kinds of new electronic music (especially on RRR). Before they podcast their shows, you'd have to be in Melbourne (and within about 30km radius of their transmitter) when they were broadcast in order to listen to them.

'Casting removes all these obstacles.

...the case of Beats in Space is interesting 'cos it is basically a radio show offered as a podcast. But I don't think you can say the same about many of the electronic music 'casts, which are effectively Mix compilations. I think something entirely new is happening here. It's not categorically new (yes there were mixtapes, yes there was pirate radio, yes there was even college radio in some places), but the scale and scope allowed by the technology is a complete game change, in my view.

my favourite recent mix is the seth troxler bunker one. and absolute work of art. also butane's december mix.

lower end spasm are good for posting FACT mixes, for the uk heads. i'm also a big fan of cacophonous bling (tree canopy), jon rowett and the Low Light mixes series is incredible for those of you more on the ambient side of things

another trend might be the weekly record-picks by the blogs.This (together with some other aspects) make the music lose its special character in the club/dj-scene. The blogs are selecting what's hot for the dj's to play now...?Or am i missing the point on those weekly charts ?

I just think it means DJs have to work a lot harder, and this is a good thing.

Time was, good EPs were only available on vinyl, from selected stores... I remember in the mid 90s the UK DJs used to have tracks that only they could get, or, if we could get 'em, we could only get 'em in Australia months and months later.

Hence even

Pete Tong (UK) [egad!]

meant you were seeing someone who had access to sounds and information you just didn't.

Many DJs I've spoken to recently have explained that these days the crowds know 'what's out there' even more than they do, 'cos they're either playing or in transit.

That changes relations, surely.

But playlists, like Traktor's beatmatching, only do so much. A great DJ, with her experience, knowledge and skills, can always elevate things...

...but a do think a certain kind of (typically geeky, male) collector, who relies on the cultural capital of their collection, their knowledge and so on, might feel threatened by an eighteen year old with a keen, curious mind and broadband. They'll close the gap on you in a number of years... this is surely threatening, no?

@ PC: “I take your point on radio, however there are key differences. The first is distribution. How would I, an Australian in Melbourne, listened to any of the podcasts I mentioned if they were pirate radio? So the penetration: that is new, absolutely.”

No doubt... but isn't the emergence of international distribution more a result of the world wide web as opposed to the I-pod in “podcast”. I believe it's more accurate to call this a webcast paradigm. A matter of semantics perhaps, but really one of branding as well, which you hint on in your original post. It's up to the end user what they want to do with this archived material: move it to their ipod, or like me, listen to it at home through their computer. But yeah, anyone can listen to any radio show or mixtape 'cast anywhere at anytime. With regard to radio, who is up in the local hour listening to a late night show? That DJ probably has more listeners in other continents than a local audience. This condition is undeniably new. To me though, the ipod isn't the technological breakthrough. It's more of a (commercialized) prosthetic to this new condition that will drive the habits of the consumers so Apple can make profit. As an aside, I wonder what the culture is like in places like China, where portable electronics are cool, but internet is censored, or jamaica, where I've been told music is ubiquitous by way of cheap 7” pressings (the equivalent of our mp3s).

“The second is a matter of storage and portability: let's just say I was a freak for a certain radio show and I taped it, just like I used to when I was a kid, to be played back on my Walkman. How on earth would I tape the dozen hours a week's worth of material that came through? How would I store and file it? How would I carry it?”

Once we removed these constraints with the portable player, the logical end might be one of excess consumption. Do we really need 80-gig hardrives for our portable music players? (For new generation I-pod/phone, I suppose it makes more sense for video playback). Now, does someone become more concerned with filling up their huge harddrive to get value out of their product, and through what process do they fill it up... with a bunch of dreck, or stuff they will never listen to? I make an analogy here to digital cameras. What's the use of a 9MP camera? Excess megapixels amount to noise in the photograph, which ends up looking like crap. Might there be similar reasoning to how we consume music? I personally prefer to put one or two albums on my Ipod in a given day, or as I did before, to carry my walkmen around with 3 CDs in my bag. With fewer choices, I was able to engage the music with more focus. Other people are comfortable with more noise in their lives; I know I am when it comes to many things. Ultimately, we're talking music here, which has cultural currency. To follow the law of diminishing returns, what happens to the value of your music if you have so much of it? Sure you probably know about more music, but in what ways does it change how you connect with it?

... which leads logically to your comment:

“...but a do think a certain kind of (typically geeky, male) collector, who relies on the cultural capital of their collection, their knowledge and so on, might feel threatened by an eighteen year old with a keen, curious mind and broadband. They'll close the gap on you in a number of years... this is surely threatening, no? “

Are you saying the pipecock phenomenon is unique to our age? I'm kidding pipecock... you run a sweet blog! But in all seriousness, we can see these situations evident in the main street records and shades of jae posts on house is a feeling. In this way, I think it legitimizes his way of doing things... if the purpose is to “protect” a certain value when it comes to consuming music.

'College radio' such as it is is always a term I've associated with the States. There isn't really any such thing here. In Melbourne we have RRR and PBS, both of whom play an eclectic mix of stuff, and there are some excellent shows there which could expose you to all kinds of new electronic music (especially on RRR). Before they podcast their shows, you'd have to be in Melbourne (and within about 30km radius of their transmitter) when they were broadcast in order to listen to them.

While slightly different entities, I think they are motivated by similar ideals. I'm glad they exist. BBC One and the U.S.'s NPR are similar to college radio when it comes to alternative programming. I know many college radio participants ultimately move on to positions in these public broadcasting services.

I tend to use DJMixes.net (although this isn't technically a podcast) to find live mixes, usually from the same night/night before. Yes, I know htese are definately illegal in most senses, but mixes are supposed to be heard a live format, are they not.

i can hear, at any time, a broadcast of an artist's work being played anywhere in the world, at any time of the day.

i can hear a Swiss DJ playing to a nightclub of 1,000 people, or, perhaps, a DJ from Brazil recording music from a lonely afternoon.

i feel like then that these podcasts allow for a more natural form of musical expression that is not bound by financial motives for they seem to better capture a vibe more so than produced Mixed CDs which seem to more so capture an aesthetic.

In that way is there a sense of diminished pretense for me, in podcasts, that can only be described as a result of spontaneity, since they are often not strictly bound to promotional means.

Allez-Allez do a consistently interesting podcast. They get a lot of guest DJs, but their resident mixes (by Sam and Steve) are generally really really good.

http://www.allez-allez.co.uk/

As for favourites, 2 of the Cio d'Or sets that you ssgs have pointed me towards stick out — the Process mix and the Polar 22 (Alpha) mix are great. Also the recent Kassem Mosse ssg mix got a lot of plays.

Thanks for the blog, I've been lurking and downloading for ages. Keep up the amazing music and debate.

@ Araki: I think you make a really good point - it is about webs, more than pods. Pods just capture, they don't 'cast.

To quote from our interview with Terre T from last year:

"As for technology, does anybody else find it unbelievably patronizing that the default file name for most Apple software follows the formula ‘My…’ – ‘My Disc’, ‘My Song’, ‘My Movie’, etc.? It's a real sign of how we've socially come to project personal identity onto corporately structured media. It goes hand in hand with the rise of the ‘DJ as Artist’."

...as for the liveness and spontaneity thing, well, I think I can speak for all the SSGs when I say that's one of the reasons why we were so, so happy to be able to present Dozzy's five hour monster in its fullness. This is something new that we can do with this technology, something almost unambiguously good.

Also I agree with Harry on Cio's sets... they're so amazing, and they don't get tired.

I enjoy the peter clamat-Podcast @ itunes (free). It´s quite new and def. different to the other (sometimes boring) podcasts there. He also plays unreleased or non commercial (cc etc..) material and supports young labels and artists.

i'm late on this debate, as i've been travelling. i have many thoughts, but i'll just leave one for now. on the relationship between mix cds and podcasts, when it comes to podcasts that are recorded in the studio or at home, i actually want them to recreate the perfect mix cd. think about the classic mix cds - they were so well composed, there was real thought and care taken. and more often than not, you would not only love the cd, you'd also learn something. a new sound if you are lucky, or perhaps a new artist, or a new record. and most of all, the best mix cds last. for example, i can still put on herbert's globus mix and be amazed. same with many others. and that's what i worry about with podcasts. so many of them are completely disposable. there is the temptation to churn 'em out.

doh - how could I miss suggesting this Bunker podcast by Stephen Beaupré (http://www.beyondbooking.com/podcast.asp).This is excellent - top 5 for me. It then led me to tracking down his Foe Destroyer release which is also excellent.

Late in Chris - yes but aren't many mix CD's disposable ? In some ways more so because the often have older tracks that just don't cut it anymore; That we tire of. I still buy them but I have to say my hit rate on great mixes is now better on podcasts. Probably coz there's a great deal more of them.

Sure I have some amazing mix CD's - heaps actually - that stand above the rest, and I guess this is why I'll still take the chance of buying the odd one.

For me podcasts compliment and assist in my music buying. Music 'buying' - well, showing my age there but I'm happy to support the artist and industry that gives me so much joy.

I have never understood the merits of the mix. I feel that the mixing of records is something that is intended for the clubs, used to make one long track to keep the dancers moving. When listening at home I feel shorted that I do not hear the full songs, or it bothers me that I do not even know what I am listening to if no track list is given. When listening to a mix at home, to me they only seem to sound like an unfocused mess, with the simple exception of a few masterful works of art (Dominik Eulberg's Krecht & Fleucht, Marcel Dettmann's Berghain II, or anything by DJ Rupture) that manage to truly flow beautifully and hypnotize. I know I am really a black sheep here, but I simply don't understand. Maybe I have a wrong idea?

@doodiebrains: it seeems like a strange forum to make the comment about mixing... I dunno, if you don't get it, you don't get it. I could never see those 'magic eye' pictures - I don't think my life is any less rich and meaningful.

Maybe this whole thing isn't your thing...?

Basically though: There are as many reasons to mix as there are mixers - I don't think utility is the master function.

Strange? This whole forum was about mixes. Podcasts specifically. I just meant that I love the techno, I just don't like hearing it mixed together unless I'm in a club setting. (Although I have to admit that the Appleblim RA Podcast was DAMN amazing, which I just got around to hearing) I can handle the possible fact that they just "aren't my thing", but the "whole" thing is definantly right up my alley, since pretty much all I listen to is techno. Nothing can give me a rush like a damn good minimal techno song. Thanks for the response anyhow.

I've really fallen behind lately. If anyone is still reading this post, I would recommend the Test Industries blog (www.testindustries.com) courtesy of Richard Brophy. He's recently posted live sets by Convextion and Sleeparchive, two producers definitely worth the time.